It's bright, sunny and the birds are (seriously) singing. I'm in a comparatively chilly two-bedroom apartment, looking for an excuse not to do the laundry, and this is it! I'm working from home, much as I have been in my retreat in Rawang, still keeping an eye and a half on what's happening back in KL, and keeping my fingers crossed.
Here, it's election time. I was listening to a wonderful group of people on the radio this morning. Ah, this should really start with a discussion of 3CR, and the other community radio stations in Melbourne, but that will have to wait. Was listening to the John Howard Ladies' Auxiliary Fan Club
who have now started a 'paramilitary' wing to declare war on the working classes. The ladies had staged a 'terrorist' event at one of 'Johnnie's' events this morning. Strapping Christmas crackers on themselves, they rallied round one of his events, then pulled the crackers at an opportune moment. According to them (the stunt was conducted live on air), this was to provide Johnnie with an opportunity to declare, once more, a war on terrorism, create fear and thus guarantee himself another term as Premier.
There are lots of serious issues in this election - but nobody seems to want to talk about them. The Labour leader, Kevin Rudd, seems to have his behaviour largely dictated by John Howard. Howard says 'sack the Trade Unionists' and Rudd obliges. Yet, despite startling low unemployment (watch those figures morph as definitions change!), something like 10% of Australians experience poverty - much higher than the number of unemployed. Not an issue to mention in this election.
Maybe in the next post I'll talk about indigenous issues - the Aborigines here have a bad deal, but I am sometimes annoyed about how focussed they are on the industrialised and developed world...
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